About

Summary

The overall aim of this project was to strengthen the system of tourism statistics in Lesotho through the development of an online tourism information system that would bring together, in one place, all the key tourism statistics for Lesotho; enable this data to be shared with other organisations, companies and individuals through the online interface; enable LTDC to generate annual statistics reports more quickly and easily; and provide a tool for tracking changes in the sector.

In addition to the design, development and implementation of this system, the project included the implementation of methodologies to improve the collection and compilation of inbound arrival statistics, the measurement of tourism employment, the implementation of a domestic tourism survey, and an updated Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) for the year 2013.

Our Approach

The online tourism information centre (known as LOTIS: Lesotho Online Tourism Information System) was programmed using our T-Stats software, enabling the capture and compilation of a wide range of tourism statistics, including: visitor arrivals, trip characteristics from the annual visitor survey, accommodation statistics, attractions statistics, and an inventory of tourism establishments for the tracking of employment.  The system was programmed with a dashboard showing the latest summary of statistics and a facility to allow easy and rapid reporting.

The capture of inbound arrivals statistics by the immigration authorities was being transferred to an online system at the time of the project, so a link was established so that LOTIS could capture these data (omitting the sensitive data such as name, passport number, etc) electronically for processing within LOTIS.

The capture of tourism employment and domestic tourism statistics was undertaken through two separate surveys.  The employment survey was undertaken through face-to-face interviews with tourism sector characteristic businesses such as accommodation, food and beverage services, tour operators and transport operators.  The domestic tourism survey was implemented through a household survey.

Outcome

The LOTIS system provided the LTDC with a central database of intelligence for planning, policy making and marketing, and is kept current through the management of staff in the Research and Statistics Department who were fully trained in using the system.

The updated TSA for 2013 utilised the LOTIS data, enabling a comprehensive update of the 2011 TSA that was also compiled by Acorn.  The TSA showed that Tourism Gross Value Added (TGVA) amounted to $30 million, accounting for 3.1% of GDP.